Along the' Atlantic rock, undreading climb, And of its eggs despoil the solan's " nest.

Thus, bless'd in primal innocence they live, Sufficed, and happy with that frugal fare

Which tasteful toil and hourly danger give: Hard is their shallow soil, and bleak and bare ; Nor ever vernal bee was heard to murmur there!

Nor need'st thou blush that such false themes en-
Thy gentle mind, of fairer stores possess'd; [gage
For not alone they touch the village breast,
But fill'd, in elder time, the' historic page.
There, Shakspeare's self, with every garland
crown'd,

Flew to those fairy climes his fancy sheen,

In musing hour; his wayward sisters found, And with their terrors dress'd the magic scene. From them he sung, when mid his bold design, Before the Scot, afflicted, and aghast!

The shadowy kings of Banquo's fated line Through the dark cave in gleamy pageant pass'd. Proceed! nor quit the tales which, simply told, Could once so well my answering bosom pierce; Proceed, in forceful sounds, and colour bold, The native legends of thy land rehearse; To such adapt thy lyre, and suit thy powerful verse.

In scenes like these, which, daring to depart

From sober truth, are still to Nature true,

And call forth fresh delight to Fancy's view, The' heroic Muse employ'd her Tasso's art;

An aquatic bird like a goose, on the eggs of which the inhabitants of St. Kilda, another of the Hebrides, chiefly subsist.

How have I trembled, when, at Tancred's stroke, Its gushing blood the gaping cypress pour'd!

When each live plant with mortal accents spoke, And the wild blast upheaved the vanish'd sword! How have I sat, when piped the pensive wind, To hear his harp by British Fairfax strung! Prevailing poet! whose undoubting mind Believed the magic wonders which he sung; Hence, at each sound, imagination glows! Hence at each picture, vivid life starts here!

Hence his warm lay with softest sweetness flows! Melting it flows, pure, murmuring, strong, and clear, And fills the' impassion❜d heart, and wins the' harmonious ear!

All hail, ye scenes that o'er my soul prevail;
Ye splendid friths and lakes, which, far away,
Are by smooth Annan 12 fill'd, or pastoral Tay 12,
Or Don's 12 romantic springs, at distance hail!
The time shall come, when I, perhaps, may tread
Your lowly glens 13, o'erhung with spreading
broom;

Or o'er your stretching heaths, by Fancy led:

Or, o'er your mountains creep, in awful gloom! Then will I dress once more the faded bower, Where Jonson 14 satin Drummond's classic shade; crop, from Tiviotdale, each lyric flower, And mourn, on Yarrow's banks, where Willy's laid!

Or

12 Three rivers in Scotland.

13 Valleys.

14 Ben Jonson paid a visit on foot, in 1619, to the Scottish poet Drummond, at his seat of Hawthornden, within four miles of Edinburgh. See an account of a conversation which passed between them, in Drummond's Works, 1711.

Meantime, ye powers that on the plains which bore The cordial youth, on Lothian's plains 15, at

tend!-

15

Where'er Home dwells, on hill, or lowly moor,

To him I love your kind protection lend, And, touch'd with love like mine, preserve my absent friend 16!

15 Barrow, it seems, was at the Edinburgh University, which is in the county of Lothian.

16 The following supplemental stanzas to the foregoing Ode, will be found to commemorate some striking Scottish superstitions omitted by Collins. They are the production of William Erskine, Esq. Advocate, and form a Continuation of the Address, by Collins, to the Author of Douglas, exhorting him to celebrate the traditions of Scotland. They originally appeared in the Edinburgh Magazine for April, 1788.

Thy Muse may tell, how, when at evening's close,
To meet her love beneath the twilight shade,
O'er many a broom-clad brae and heathy glade,
In merry mood the village maiden goes;
There, on a streamlet's margin as she lies,

Chanting some carol till her swain appears,
With visage, deadly pale, in pensive guise,
Beneath a wither'd fir his form he rears !
Shrieking and sad, she bends her eirie flight,
When, mid dire heaths, where flits the taper blue,
The whilst the moon sheds dim a sickly light,
The airy funeral meets her blasted view!
When, trembling, weak, she gains her cottage low,
Where magpies scatter notes of presage wide,
Some one shall tell, while tears in torrents flow,

That, just when twilight dimm'd the green hill's side, Far in his lonely sheil her hapless shepherd died.

'Let these sad strains to lighter sounds give place! Bid thy brisk viol warble measures gay!

For see! recall'd by thy resistless lay,

Once more the Brownie shows his honest face.

*The wraith, or spectral appearance of a person shortly to die, is a firm article in the creed of Scottish superstition.

Hail, from thy wanderings long, my much-loved sprite!
Thou friend, thou lover of the lowly, hail!
Tell, in what realm thou sport'st thy merry night,
Trail'st the long mop, or whirl'st the mimic flail.
Where dost thou deck the much-disorder'd hall,
While the tired damsel in Elysium sleeps,
With early voice to drowsy workman call,

Or lull the dame while mirth his vigils keeps ? "Twas thus in Caledonia's domes, 'tis said,

Thou ply'dst the kindly task in years of yore:
At last in luckless hour, some erring maid

Spread in thy nightly cell of viands store :
Ne'er was thy form beheld among their mountains more

Then wake (for well thou canst) that wondrous lay,
How, while around the thoughtless matrons sleep,
Soft o'er the floor the treacherous fairies creep,

And bear the smiling infant far away :

* 'The Brownie formed a class of beings, distinct in habit and disposition from the freakish and mischievous elves. He was meagre, shaggy, and wild in his appearance. Thus, Cleland, in his satire against the Highlanders, compares them to

'Faunes, or brownies, if ye will,

Or satyres come from Atlas hill."

In the day-time, he lurked in remote recesses of the old houses which he delighted to haunt; and, in the night sedulously employed himself in discharging any laborious task which he thought might be acceptable to the family, to whose service he had devoted himself. But, although, like Milton's lubber fiend, he loves to stretch himself by the fire, he does not drudge from the hope of recompense. On the contrary, so delicate is his attachment, that the offer of reward, but particularly of food, infallibly occasions his disappearance for ever. 'When the menials in a Scottish family protracted their vigils around the kitchen fire, Brownie, weary of being excluded from the midnight hearth, sometimes appeared at the door, seemed to watch their departure, and thus admonished them-Gang a' to your beds, sirs, and dinna put out the wee grieshoch (embers)."

It seems no improbable conjecture, that the Brownie is a legitimate descendant of the Lar Familiaris of the ancients.

-how the drudging goblin sweat,
To earn the cream-bowl, duly set!
When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
His shadowy flail had thrash'd the corn,
That ten day-labourers could not end;
Then lies him down the lubber fiend;

And, stretch'd out all the chimney's length,
Basks at the fire, his airy strength;
And, crop-full, out of door he flings,
Ere the first cock his matin rings.'

L'Allegro.

252

MR. ERSKINE'S SUPPLEMENT.

How starts the nurse, when, for her lovely child,
She sees at dawn a gaping idiot stare!
O snatch the innocent from demons wild,
And save the parents fond from fell despair!
In a deep cave the trusty menials wait,

When from their hilly dens, at midnight's hour,
Forth rush the airy elves in mimic state,

And o'er the moonlight heath with swiftness scour ; In glittering arms the little horsemen shine;

Last, on a milk-white steed with targe of gold, A fay of might appears, whose arms entwine

The lost, lamented child; the shepherds bold *

The' unconscious infant tear from his unhallow'd hold!

For an account of the Fairy superstition, see the Introduction to the Tale of Tamlane,' in that elegant work called Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, vol. ii. p. 174, second edition.

END OF VOL. XXXIX.

C. Whittingham, College House, Chiswick.